


What We Can Give

by Grigiocuore



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Badass Colette, Dean and Cain being cuties, Demons turning humans, Fix-It, Multi, Rituals, True Love
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-05-08
Updated: 2015-05-08
Packaged: 2018-03-29 15:48:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,073
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3901945
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Grigiocuore/pseuds/Grigiocuore
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>On the porch was standing Cain. He was paler than the last time, the shirt was ripped to pieces and overall he looked positively shitfaced. He was cradling his left arm to the chest. The arm was pooling blood around his shoes.<br/>-Hi Cain.- Dean said.<br/>-Hi Dean.- Cain flinched, swayed hard.<br/>–Sorry to bother.- He said, and dropped in a heap on their porch.</p>
<p>It's a common night until the Father of Murder ends up half-unconscious on the Winchester's doors. He has a skinned arm, a pretty impressive blood loss on its way, and no demonic magic. As unbelievable it could be, now Cain is human: but this just means someone out there is roaming about with the First Killer's power. Dean Winchester is ready for many things, but not for what it's coming.</p>
            </blockquote>





	What We Can Give

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! This is my very first Supernatural fic, and it is born basically out of the heartache I got for Cain and Colette never-told story. I admire true love and believe it; and being a cheesy soul, I think ti deserves happy end too. The canon setting is a bit hazy, but the fic could be put somewhere around late ninth season. Hope you'll enjoy.  
> P.S.: The title is inspired by Imagine Dragons new album, that inspires me a lot of sappy crap, and suggested by mrsdanieljackson, who listens to much of it.

**-I-**

Dean Winchester rarely stayed awake for a whole night; he equally rarely slept for the full extent of it. He had learnt to fall asleep almost on command on the backseat of Dad’s car and to fasten his reaction times as much as possible. He had started to call it the Hunter Coma: unexpected times, rude awakening, pathologically deep. His brother called it “grizzly sleep” and that’s it. He didn’t understand it was a necessity. Not sleeping meant being tired so not taking off the gun fast enough so not protecting Cas and Sam well. Therefore, Dean slept. He had slept the night after Mom died and the night after Dad died and the afternoon after he died and got dragged back by an angel. But on these night, oh, he just couldn’t. 

They were the nights all the times he failed to protect his family punched him like a brick wall. Sammy’s eyes with no soul in them, bleeding wings, Cas dropping his hand, you go, Dean, not me, Sam coughing blood on his shoulder, several times many too times everytime. Dean Winchester had no problems to sleep on his death, but not on theirs. 

He clutched his pillow, staring in the dark, not breathing. 

Go away. They’re safe, they’re safe. That is the past. Go away. 

Sam. Cas. You can’t save them. Next time. The one after. Falling. Screaming. 

Let’s get a beer. 

He kicked off the sheets and slipped on the floor and padded towards the kitchen without turning on the lights. He was still new to that giant palace of a home and on the way managed to get two toes smashed against corners and doors, but at least he didn’t summon Cas. Cas, oh _Cas_. Dean’s hands shook slightly as he got the fridge open. 

He took out a can of Heineken and leaned back against the counter. The first two gulps flowed swift and fresh down the throat, simple pleasure, nothing more. He let it calm down the shaking. He took another sip, tasting it fully, peering in the shadows through the large kitchen windows. 

Then the doorbell buzzed. 

Dean turned to the living room door and to the front door past it. He knew without looking it was too late for casual visits. He calmly put the can back on the counter, started for the doors and calmly grabbed the silver knife resting on the cupboard. 

The doorbell buzzed again. Dean took another step across the carpet. There were eight feet between him and the front door. If the bastard outside slammed down the door, he had a seventy percent possibility to knock his ass out before getting eaten. 

Dean straightened up when he was two feet from the door. He reached it, took a breath, peered through the peephole. He stilled for a moment. Then he lowered the knife, took a step back and opened the door. 

Oh the porch was standing Cain. He was paler than the last time, the shirt was ripped to pieces and overall he looked positively shitfaced. He was cradling his left arm to the chest. The arm was pooling blood around his shoes. 

-Hi Cain.- Dean said. 

-Hi Dean.- Cain flinched, swayed hard. 

–Sorry to bother.- He said, and dropped in a heap on their porch. 

* 

When Dean kicked the door open and dragged an unconscious man past it, his little brother was walking in the room with a ritual knife and his Cheerios pjs. For all he loved mocking him, Sam had been around Hunters long enough to jump awake at the slightest sound and have a blade in hand less than a second after. He still had to grasp how not to look like a grouchy squirrel dragged out of its hole, however. 

- _What the Hell?-_

-Help me.- 

-Dean- 

-I’ll tell you everything, but now come here.- 

Sam made a frustrated sound, clacked his tongue. He rushed to him. –But he is. Blood. Who. I. What. Who the Hell _is this_?- 

Dean rapidly evaluated what to say. Chose the truth. –Cain.- 

- _That_ Cain?- 

-Yeah, Sammy, that Cain.- 

They put him on the couch. Pale, sweat. The right arm was a mess of blood, scratched all the way along the forearm. Nail-scratched. What the Hell, Cain, what the Hell. 

Sam talked very softly. -Why is the Father of Murder bleeding in our living room, Dean?- 

-I still don’t know.- 

-He’s boiling.- Dean took off the hand from his forehead. Slipped to his neck. –The pulse is too fast. Dammit.- 

Sammy licked his lips. After a lifetime together, Dean could _feel_ him scowling without turning. -But, he’s a demon.- 

-Yeah. Bring gauzes and alcohol, Sammy.- 

-But he’s _a demon_.- 

-And he’s bleeding, so gauzes and alcohol, Sam.- 

Sam grumbled, cursed and stormed out of the living room. They both knew he was going to pick the gauzes up. 

* 

Dean rubbed his face, watching the couch and the unconscious man slumped over it. Sighed. Rubbed his face again. 

-Are you sure, Cas?- 

-Yes.- Their personal angel was standing in front of him, a thoughtful pout gracing his face. He had popped out of the corridor the second Sammy left, rumbling there like some sort of clumsy tornado. For being a Lord’s angel in the presence of an ancestral demonic identity, he was playing it very cool. -I’ve checked anything I could think of. No supernatural perception. No auras. I suppose you too could perceive it.- 

Oh, they could perceive it. Or better, the lack of it. The man was certainly the one Dean had known, the one that got fuckin’ _stabbed in the heart_ without a flinch. But the rest was all different. Now there was something screaming tender flesh and tearable skin and blood pumping in tiny blue veins. Now Dean knew that if he made a reasoned leap he wouldn’t get away in time, and that if he cut he would bleed and that if he cut deeper he could even die. 

Dean’s hand brushed the soft mark under his sleeve. 

_What the Hell, Cain, what the Hell._

-So now he is, human?- 

-Actually yes, Dean.- Cas said smoothly. 

-Why?- 

-I have no idea, Dean.- Cas said smoothly. 

Sigh. -Awesome. Sam, hints from the nerdy party?- 

-Nope.- 

-Okay.- 

Dean let himself slumping on the leather armchair, directly across the sofa. Cain’s wounded arm limped off the brim, stretched on the coffee table to avoid contact. The scratches were deep and ugly but they hadn’t had time to get infected. He had cleared them with alcohol and applied the disinfectant and bind it all with clean gauzes, but some blood kept seeping through. It was actually as if he had meant to take off a whole layer of skin. By scratching. Dean swallowed. 

-C’mon, guys. Demons do not change into humans out of nothing. It’s not a damn allergy.- 

-Crowley?- 

Dean cast his brother a glance. –You didn’t see him Sammy, but that English dick almost pissed himself when we got to Cain’s. Nah, must be someone higher.- He thought for a moment. -Or lower.- 

Cas fidgeted a bit on the spot. When he talked, he did it in the slow careful voice of bad news. -Actually, there’s a way, now that I think about it. But it is a very unpredictable one.- 

-How so?- 

-It is called the Exchange, or at least this is its latest translation. It came to be at the very birth of time, before cities and wars, way before these things gained a name. According to my kin, if correctly executed, the Exchange allows any being to free themselves from their power and even from their very nature, no matter how deep, no matter how damned it is. It can be either the most holy and the most unholy of the choices. Still, I have never seen it performed.- 

-Why haven’t I ever heard about it?- 

-Very few are the creatures with the kind of power required by the Exchange.- Castiel added.-When you gain such a might, you are not usually inclined to give it up on your own.- 

Dean shrugged. –Makes sense.- He sighed. –And you think Cain could have done it. - 

-Yes. But there are other things to consider. This ritual requires a perfect accord between the involved parties. And above all, a suitable recipient.- 

Sammy blinked. -Sorry?- 

-So much power cannot be simply erased, Sam. It’s like matter, or ether, ever changing, never dying. Nature does not care for names or faces: it does not care for the form of a single recipient. But if the power has left Cain, something else should have accept it.- 

_Someone. Something_ . 

Dean hinted at the sofa. Cain mumbled and flinched in the sleep, without waking. Sam had brought in a plaid too. He felt like talking through sawdust. 

-He knew about it?- 

-I do not know.- 

-Who’s the recipient?- 

Cas’s lips tightened. -I do not know, Dean.- 

* 

He came around half an hour later. Sam had finally stopped roaming around the living room as a wary cat and sat down on the other chair. Dean had picked back his beer. Cas stood quietly behind his armchair like a contented butler. Dean was actually bordering on dozing when the man stirred under the blanket. 

They all stilled to listen. The breathing itched and steadied. He groaned. 

Dean leaned back in his chair. 

-How do you feel?- 

Cain groaned again, and talked through the cushion with a good impression of Swamp Thing’s voice. 

-Dizzy. And awful. And everything’s swirling around.- 

-Yes.- Dean shrugged. -Humanity kind of sucks from time to time.- 

He groaned again, smearing further their oh-so-comfy sofa with blood. Dean felt himself grimacing in sympathy. Cain was still an imposing man, strong back, large farmer hands. But the halo, the powerful stillness that had wrapped him back at the cottage was gone. Everything about him had been as still as very old lakes. Not now. Now he was breathing, he was hurting. _What the fuck does it feel like to hurt after millennia of superpowers?_

-You should drink a bit, if you feel up to it.- 

-Drink?- 

-Yeah. Water. I’d go with a scotch shot, but I think getting you wasted now wouldn’t be a smart move.- 

-Oh. Oh, yes. Thanks.- 

Some minutes before Dean had poured a glass of water from the sink and put it on the coffee table. Cain pulled himself to sit, slowly. He pushed on the bleeding arm and his face got several shades greener. He looked well on his way to spill guts on the carpet, but managed to dull it through long shaking breaths. 

Dean lent him the glass. Cain gulped down the water and coughed on half of it. Dean could feel Cas and Sam exchanging perplexed gazes over his head as he almost strangled himself over water. 

-Ah. Ugh. Thanks.- 

-Never mind.- Dean sighed. -Anything you wanna share now?- 

Cain’s voice hadn’t improved yet. -I sense you already know I’ve performed the Ritual.- 

-I thought you didn’t have anymore- 

-Demon perception? I do not. But your angel friend is standing right there and I’ve received enough reproachful angelic glares to recognize one of them.- 

-Oh. Oh yes. Cas is great at guilt-inducing gazes. But you have to admit in this case he can be _a tiny_ _winy_ right.- 

Dean fidgeted on the armchair. He took a longer sip of beer and looked the Father of Murder in the eye. 

-What the Hell is this thing about, Cain?- 

The man in front of him clutched the glass, straightened with quiet swiftness. –You should show more respect.- 

-I want to know how high is shit before jumping in. And I’m not one of your demony-doggies. - 

Cain’s eyes began to frost around edges, but it didn’t last. Suppose looking terrifying took a lot of energy. 

-Fine, kid. I suppose you deserve the truth.- 

-Damn right.- 

A sigh. –Very well. Shortly after you and the _Demon King_ \- He actually made it sound like “the demon janitor” – left my home, things got, harder. I started to forget things, any kind of thing. The bees. Food. Time. They just dimmed. Lost in the noise. I simply couldn’t remember anymore why they were important. 

But other things, oh, other things were growing strong. Things that had slept for centuries.- Cain frowned, licking his lips. - I could smell the blood of the city mortals from miles. The Blade sang to me every night. I nearly lost my ring, and I did not mind. I did _not mind_. I knew then I couldn’t permit it.- 

-So you skipped the shrink and go for the Extreme Makeover Demon Edition?- 

-It was the only way, Dean. –He said slowly. –I felt it. I felt it all the time. It, would have been so easy. I knew the only thing that could prevent myself from reaching for it would have not to have it anymore. I remembered that ritual from many ages ago. I tried. It was the only possible choice.- 

-You condemned someone else to the same shit.- 

-I never said it was a courageous choice, Dean.- 

The demon quietly stared at him, hands folded on his lap, playing with his wedding ring. Dean was trying hard to get angry. He _was_ angry, mind you. Just not as much as he should be. He cast a glance at Sammy. See, _he_ was the right kind of angry. Still. Losing yourself, being scared, always scared, and tired, and asking for peace, _just for peace_. 

Dean just couldn’t get properly angry. 

-Damn. You have any idea who could have get your role?- 

Cain shook his head. -No. I don’t feel any of the other worlds, now. Dark stretched around my eyes. I feel nothing but this body pulsing and skin feeling and time rolling by. How can you endure it?- 

-Ehy, it’s not so horrible once you get used to it. There are a lot of amazing things in being human.- 

-Like PB and J.- Cas offered. Dean gave him the look of affectionate resignation he reserved for Sam until five and Cas indefinitely. 

-Yeah. Sort of.- 

Sam was. -Err, guys. By any chance, has any of you thought about what can happen now?- 

-Explain.- 

-Cain has renounced to his power, right? Immortality, strength, demonic things, all the packet. If someone else has gained them in exchange.- Sam paused. -What they would do with them?- 

Silence fell. Dean gave a look around the room from over his beer. -Cas? Cain?- 

He so needed someone telling him they weren’t totally fucked. 

-I fear we can’t say it yet. – Castiel spoke, softly. -It depends greatly on what kind of creature we’re talking about. Dead, alive, ghost, vampire, human, new-born, immortal. It could be anyone. Anything. And they could have endured the change, or not. What they would do then, and how much of them would have actually survived, that is nothing I can fathom.- 

-So, we could have a crazed baby-demon roaming around with the First Killer’ powers?- 

Three heads bobbed awkwardly to him. -Yes.- 

-Oh fuck, that’s just gettin’ better and _better.-_

-I would not worry much about that, young Winchester.- Cain commented. -Changing in a monster is pure storm. It’s forgetting any memory, burning, losing your own skin. It had been years before I knew my name again. The forces upward and below would do not permit a foolish newborn to roam around much.- 

Cas nodded. -It is wise.- 

Cain shuffled on the couch. -Anyway, I’d understand you, Dean. You have a home, a- He dropped his gaze for less than a second. -family to protect. No one would understand it more than me. If you want, I go away. Honestly, I’m not even sure why I came here at first.- 

-You came here because you needed a friend.- 

Several eyes widened at Dean’s words. His own too. He had talked before he could put any filter on, and it absolutely sounded like a bad Oprah’s sketch. He realized it was also completely true. 

Dammit. 

Dean cleared his throat before it got even weirder. -Err, okay. You stay on the couch for the night. Tomorrow we’ll go doing a bit of research anyway.- 

-I apologize again. Now I see it has been a very stupid decision.- 

Dean grimaced. -Don’t be so hard on yourself now.- 

-I go.- 

-No you don’t.- He grabbed the older man’s arm, pushing him back on the cushions. It was unexpectedly easy. -You’re afoot and you’re injured. You sleep on the couch.- 

-Dean.- 

-Ah, don’t go all uppity-up now, Sammy.- Dean turned to the couch. -If he tries something, we’ll kill him. Is it right for ya?- 

Cain nodded evenly. -Certainly.- 

-Ah, perfect.- Sam shrieked. - The biblical murderous demon said he would be good. Whoa, I’m peachy now.- 

-Sam.- 

-No Dean. No.- He got up with a squeak of leather, looking grim despite the Cheerios shirt. 

-Sam.- Dean called. Sam didn’t stop. -Sam.- 

His little brother stomped past the door. He growled, almost excused himself, thought better. 

When he peeked in the corridor, Sam was almost to his room’s door. Dean skipped forward and grabbed his arm. 

-Ehy. Are you all right?- 

-Well, no, Dean.- Sam shrugged him off. -We’re jumping in a freakin’ mess, and exactly in the moment things begin to get a bit less horrible. You aren’t making any sense.- 

Dean blinked. -Well, I think I’m being pretty responsible here.- 

-You invited a Knight of Hell in our house.- 

-What I should have done, leaving him bleeding on the porch?- 

-Yes.- 

Sam’s voice was hard, but Dean knew he was scared. He knew it by the way he held himself against the doorway, hand shaking slightly, mouth clasped hard. They had a home again. They’d lost so much. Dean licked his lips. 

-Listen, I won’t let anything happen, to you or to Cas. I would rather set myself on fire while listening to Justin Bieber’s greatest hits. You know I mean it. But I can’t. I.- Dean struggled with words. Didn’t find them. Sighed. –Right now he really needs a friend. And, he’s nice.- 

-You use words like _nice_?- 

-Sometimes yes.- 

They looked at each other. It was a pretty lousy sermon and Dean tried to find something else, but there was no need to. Sam understood. Threw his arms up in surrender. 

-Fine.- He hissed. -But I swear to God, that’s last time you invite your friends overnight.- 

  


  


  



End file.
